Kathe Pate began her career as an attorney specializing in trust, estate and tax litigation at Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago.  Before becoming an attorney, Kathe was an investment banker at Lazard Freres New York and Credit Suisse First Boston, specializing in merger and acquisitions in the media and technology industries. After Kathe left the paid workforce to raise her daughters, she volunteered as an attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center working primarily with unaccompanied and trafficked children. Kathe has served on the boards of Heartland Alliance, the Medical Research Institute Council (now the Children’s Research Fund), the Harvard Club of Chicago, and the Harvard Club of Houston. Kathe holds degrees with honors in Government and in Economics from Harvard College (A.B. 1987) and from the University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1994).

After decades of living in New York City and Chicago, Kathe and her husband, William Pate, moved to Houston in 2016 and now call Texas home.